Small Riga Ghetto

271
This synagogue has survived not because the enemy wanted to spare it; it
has survived merely because the neighboring houses stand so close to it that a
fire in the synagogue would have endangered them as well.
The outside of the synagogue has not suffered as much as its interior. The
inside of the beautiful synagogue has lost all its magnificence, and everything
in it has disappeared except for one small bench.
The oroin koidesch (holy shrine) and even the walls have been desecrated by
the hands of the enemy.
I climb the few steps leading to the synagogue and stay there for a while. I
am moved to go down to the bet hamidrot (Bet Hamidrasch - House of Prayer)
in the cellar, where I prayed when I was a young man, and where the late Riga
rabbi Sack taught the Schiur, or Talmud. There too, everything has been destroyed
and nothing remains.
I remember Cantor Abramis, who for many years thrilled Jewish hearts here
with his beautiful voice.
On this day the Jews are meeting here to weep over their sorrows and meditate
on the best and most beautiful of what they have lost.
I meet comrades from camps and concentration camps, who tell me about
their various experiences. They also report on many people who died in Germany
after the liberation because of their weakness, or who are still in hospitals
battling with death.
I also see Jews who have returned from the Soviet Union. But the Jews I
used to meet in my daily life and business rounds are no longer there.
The largest proportion of Jews present are from our eastern provinces, who
had the possibility of fleeing from the enemy. I ask about one or another person.
None of them is there. This murderous war has claimed countless victims.
Numerous graves of Latvian Jews lie near Moscow (Lenino), and still more
near Staraja Russa. These Jewish heroes protected Moscow from the enemy
with their own bodies, and thus gave another glorious chapter to history.
Now they lie still in their graves and are known as the heroes of the Latvian
Guard division. They have lost their Jewish names, which are not publicly
mentioned, and thus the world does not know they were Jews.
The women's gallery above is full to bursting. The women are already
weeping even before they cross the threshold of the synagogue. They also
weep before the cantor has recited the Hazkoro, or prayer of commemoration.
People weep as they greet each other. They no longer ask about one or another
person, for hardly anyone has survived anyway. Among the women are a
great many young widows.